


you should be scared of me (who is in control?)

by revanchxst (BadWolfGirl01)



Series: we live or die to take the throne [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Battle of Odessen (Star Wars), Canon-Typical Violence, Everybody Lives, F/F, Force Storms Are Not Fun, Planet Odessen (Star Wars), Redeemed Vaylin (Star Wars), Sith Inquisitor Outlander, Star Wars: The Old Republic - Knights of the Eternal Throne, Tirall Family Drama, Valkorion raises the Jedi Knight, Vaylin Lives, kind of?, the second invasion of odessen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29411478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolfGirl01/pseuds/revanchxst
Summary: The Alliance is going to burn today. Father is going to die today. Arcann is going to fall today.Lia is certain of it.[or: the second battle of Odessen.]
Relationships: Arcann & Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython & Thexan, Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython & Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython, Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython & Senya Tirall, Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython/Vaylin
Series: we live or die to take the throne [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153424
Kudos: 4





	you should be scared of me (who is in control?)

**Author's Note:**

> this was So Fun to write but also Difficult. lots of drama, lots of emotion, it also got a fuckton longer than i expected but eh that's life. this is, of course, the second to last chapter of KOTET, in which the Outlander kills Vaylin, except of course as promised, Vaylin is not going to die.
> 
> the Outlander, Jana, is a Sith Inquisitor, for reference.
> 
> title from "control" by Halsey

The Alliance is going to burn today. Father is going to die today. Arcann is going to fall today.

Lia is certain of it.

Vaylin is free, finally, of the chains their father wrapped her in when she was a child; Lia’s fellow Eternal Empress has never been more powerful (or, in her opinion, more beautiful) as she is now, standing on the bridge of their flagship as the Fleet comes out of hyperspace over Odessen. The planetary shield means the Fleet can’t just bombard the planet (which would be convenient, but also means Lia wouldn’t get a chance to kill her father herself), so entire companies of skytroopers, Knights, and Horizon guards deploy from the Fleet, the smaller shuttles slipping through the planetary shield to land in the Odessen wilds. The Alliance base itself is protected by heavy weaponry, walkers, and more defenses they don’t know the extent of - it’s been difficult to get accurate intelligence, Theron Shan is disturbingly effective at rooting out spies - so they’re having to land their troops away from it and make a long ground approach.

It’s less efficient than Lia would like, but it does give her forces a good chance to render the  _ Gravestone _ in its dry dock unusable, and it means that by the time her forces reach the main Alliance base, by the time they  _ win, _ the Alliance will be utterly destroyed. Father - Valkorion - will be dead, Vaylin will get her revenge on Senya and Lia will get her revenge on Arcann, and no one in the galaxy will be able to stand against the Eternal Empire.

The battle is a long slog. The Eternal Empire is winning, but the Alliance soldiers are fanatically loyal and determined, and they’re losing too many. They shouldn’t be - last reports placed the Outlander as out of the system, and Lia wanted to take the Alliance base before she returned, wanted enough space to set up a trap that would result in Valkorion’s death  _ (proper _ death, not Arcann’s failed attempt); even if the Outlander’s pet Jedi Battlemaster and Sith Lords are all here, Lia and Vaylin’s forces are  _ good _ and have the advantage in numbers. Which can only mean one thing.

_ “Empress,” _ a comm comes in, and Lia patches it through to the holotable where Vaylin is standing. It’s a Horizon commander, crouched on one knee, helmet missing.  _ “The Outlander is here. I repeat, the Outlander’s shuttle has landed and she was seen making her way to the  _ Gravestone.”

“Shit,” Lia mutters. They were supposed to have more  _ time. _ At the holotable, Vaylin looks furious, the Force hissing and spitting around her, and she meets Lia’s eyes and nods. They know what they have to do. Father  _ has _ to die today. “Press the attack, Commander,” Lia orders, “and make sure word spreads that the Eternal Empresses are on the battlefield.”

The commander nods, salutes, and the transmission vanishes. Vaylin is already turning to stride from the bridge, and Lia hurries to catch up to her, the two of them falling into place next to each other like they’ve always done. “Father always did like ruining our plans,” Vaylin says, and Lia makes a noise of agreement. “How shall we handle this, Empress? You’re the tactician.” Which is true, but Lia appreciates more that Vaylin trusts her enough to admit to that implied weakness.

She takes Vaylin’s hand, squeezes briefly, offers her a smile. “We’ll have to split up,” she says. “I’ll take the  _ Gravestone, _ you make for the Alliance base.”

Vaylin smiles sharply. “Draw father away from his precious ship, force a confrontation - I like it.”

“Just don’t kill him before I get there,” and Lia knocks their shoulders together. She called Valkorion’s death for herself over a year ago; she’ll be  _ disappointed _ if she doesn’t get to be the one to strike the final blow, after all this time, after everything he’s put her through, after everything he did to Vaylin. 

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Vaylin says as they step into the turbolift, and Lia grins at her, reaches up one hand to brush over her cheek. “But don’t take too long, or you might miss the show with mother.”

“Don’t worry,” Lia murmurs, steps closer as the turbolift starts to descend. “You’ll hardly have time to get started.” And then she winks, says, “For luck,” and leans forward to kiss Vaylin.

Vaylin always, always kisses  _ hungrily, _ fiercely, like it’s a challenge and a competition, like if she doesn’t take it all desperately it’ll disappear. Lia understands the feeling, the passion behind it, and she returns the kiss just as forcefully until Vaylin pulls back, a satisfied smile on her lips and a glint in her eyes.

“We should go into battle more often,” she practically purrs, and Lia  _ laughs. _

“You can kiss me whenever you want to, you know,” she says, and Vaylin rolls her eyes. 

It’s  _ good _ to see Vaylin smiling and laughing like this. With her conditioning finally broken, all the pieces of her personality their father had tried to suppress have snapped back into place, and Lia- enjoys seeing the changes, enjoys seeing how much more  _ free _ Vaylin acts now that she’s not held back by the ghosts of Nathema.

(She’d been so afraid when the ritual started to go wrong, when Vaylin’s power started spiraling out of control. Running away, leaving Vaylin  _ behind, _ had been an almost impossible decision, but it’d do no good to get herself killed, and Jarak was running too, so she’d left. Killed the despicable man and had a surprisingly non-violent discussion with the Outlander, and the moment it was safe outside she’d gone to find Vaylin again. That  _ relief _ she’d felt, seeing her fellow empress alive - it’s dangerous, but Lia almost doesn’t care anymore.)

They banter back and forth the rest of the way to the hangar, before taking separate shuttles down - they’re heading for different places, after all, and besides, it wouldn’t do to lose both Empresses at once because of a shuttle being shot down. Lia’s shuttle lets her out in the wilds a ways from the  _ Gravestone’s _ dock, and she’s already moving almost before it has time to land, jumping out and hitting the ground running; she can sense Arcann and Thexan and Senya in the Force, distant from her but in the same direction she’s moving, and it’s-

She’s not sure what she thinks of them, as she slips through the Odessen night, fires burning in the trees around her and smoke rising up into the air like so many funeral pyres. She’s only seen Thexan twice since he  _ left, _ once on Voss and once via holo when Vaylin vanished, and the way he’d spoken to her…  _ it doesn’t have to be this way, Lia, _ he’d said, in a war-torn room beneath the Shrine of Healing, Senya unconscious on the floor and Arcann gone and the Outlander close enough to touch. Thexan is her brother, she doesn’t  _ want _ to fight him - not him, not Thexan, not the kind one, who held her when she cried after Ryn and who always helped her up after a match and who tried so long to keep the peace between her and Arcann, because he didn’t want to lose either of them. Thexan was the one father ignored, forgot about, dismissed as the weak one; these days, Lia can’t help wondering if Thexan is actually the best of them all.

But Thexan will never let her fight Arcann or Senya, and Lia  _ promised _ Vaylin she could have Senya, could have her revenge for how Senya abandoned them to Valkorion, abandoned Vaylin to Nathema. Lia’s never broken a promise she’s made Vaylin before, and she doesn’t intend to start now. Which means she has to be prepared to face the brother she loves at the end of her lightsaber.

It won’t be hard with Arcann. Whatever’s changed with him that made him come back to Zakuul with blue eyes and no mask, that made him kneel before the  _ Outlander _ and pledge his loyalty for all the galaxy to see, she and Arcann have been enemies since they were teenagers, a final confrontation between them has always been inevitable. (She’d never used to  _ hate _ Arcann the way he did her, but after Valkorion’s death, after Vaylin, hate has become as natural to her as breathing. That should upset her more than it does - everything she vaguely remembers from her childhood says that hate leads to dark things, but Lia herself is a dark thing now, has been for years and years.)

Up ahead, looming out of the night, Lia sees the beginning of defensive fortifications, anti-aircraft turrets and a pair of walkers and a clump of soldiers, weapons trained down the path towards her. That’s the one thing about white, she muses, as she pulls her saber from her belt: it makes it hard to blend in.

The walkers go down first, as she lunges forward, sends out two blasts of lightning from her fingers, gold saber blade igniting and flashing to deflect a hail of blasterfire as the soldiers notice her. She cuts down three in her first swing, ducks more blaster bolts, slams one hand into the ground and a wave of Force ripples out from her, sends them all flying back and skidding into the trees and rocks nearby; the moment the blasterfire fades, she’s already moving again, cutting her saber through the gun turrets and the walkers, slagging the defenses thoroughly enough they won’t be repairable in time to help with this battle. And then she’s moving again, ducking blaster bolts and whirling through the Alliance soldiers until they’re just a cluster of broken bodies on the ground.

And she deactivates her lightsaber and starts down the path towards the  _ Gravestone _ again.

Lia destroys three more defensive emplacements in a similar fashion - the last two have Jedi and Sith guarding them, though they all die so  _ quickly. _ These are the people who would’ve trained her, had Valkorion not taken her in, and she almost laughs at the thought. Lia may loathe her father more than anyone else, but his training ensured she’d be one of the best in the galaxy. She can thank him for that, even as she kills him for a final,  _ permanent _ time. 

As she approaches the last main line of defense before the dry dock - weapons and troops and droids and Jedi and Sith all backlit by the floodlights, and this will be a  _ fight, _ a good one, a warmup for Arcann - something shifts in the Force, and then a young woman steps out from behind the fortifications, in dark robes, holding a blood-orange lightsaber and a yellow shoto in a defensive position across her body. She walks forward, comes to a half a few meters away, clearly ready to fight, and Lia frowns.

There’s something… familiar about the woman. Zabrak, with dark hair, light blue eyes and tan skin and markings curling across her cheeks and chin and forehead, a fierce determination in the vivid Light of her Force-signature. A Jedi, but  _ powerful, _ easily Lia’s equal in the Force, and  _ why _ does she feel so familiar? She was in the Jedi Council chambers on Tython the day Lia conquered the planet - between that and her power Lia  _ suspects _ this is the Jedi Battlemaster - but that shouldn’t be enough to explain this strange sensation of  _ knowing. _

It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. Lia ignites her gold lightsaber again and crosses the last of the space between them in two large strides and brings her saber crashing into the woman’s defense. This Zabrak stands between her and her family, between her and the  _ end _ to all this, and this has to,  _ will _ end tonight. Lia will cut through whoever and whatever she must to finish it.

It’s been a long time since she’s fought a dual wielder in earnest. Many of the Knights use lightsaber pikes, but a double-bladed weapon handles differently than two blades, and the shoto keeps slipping Lia’s guard and catching her off-kilter. But Lia is  _ skilled, _ has always been the best of all of them at saber combat, and between that and her command of the Force she compensates for the unfamiliar fighting style. And yet- 

They’re  _ disturbingly _ well-matched. Skill, power, strength - the Zabrak Jedi never manages to get the upper hand, but Lia can’t get through her  _ guard, _ and their lightsabers are barely more than blurs of light arcing through the darkness, humming and spitting against each other. Lia uses the Force to throw the Jedi back and she just flips with the motion in an Ataru aerial, lands and is already back up in her stance. It’s like the Jedi knows all her  _ tricks, _ knows her entire fighting style, like nothing Lia can do will surprise her, and this is  _ tiring her _ and she’s going to need everything in her to face Arcann, and she still can’t quite get past the way the Force is hissing  _ familiar _ at her, and-

Frustration fueling her, Lia does something she hasn’t done in  _ years: _ she pulls on her training as a Jedi youngling and slides into the Form V she’d been learning before the Gathering that changed everything. She hammers at the Jedi’s defenses, footwork solid and sure, the motions as familiar as breathing even though she hasn’t ran through these katas since she was a child, and  _ there- _ a gap, and Lia twists and puts all her weight into the strike and falls back onto one of the marks of contact she learned in a bright, airy training salle, and she knocks the Jedi’s mainhand saber out of her hand.

And-

(Shii-cho is the only form most of the younger younglings know - it’s the basics, the foundation of lightsaber combat, and all the other forms require a solid, steady working knowledge of Form I to master. The older younglings get to learn other katas, usually just Makashi and Soresu to start, because everything else is considered too  _ aggressive _ for younglings, requiring greater emotional and physical control proven by passing the padawan trials. But Lia is special; she’s the best at saber combat they’ve ever seen, even at eleven, and the weapons master has been giving her extra lessons. She’s kept them a secret from everyone, even from J’lima, until the right time - like  _ now. _

She and J’lima have been sparring, using the familiar Shii-cho steps, and J’lima is  _ winning, _ which is unacceptable. And there’s an opening, a gap in her defense, and Lia takes advantage, slips into the stance for the opening kata for Form V and hammers down two  _ hard, _ heavy, two-handed blows before swinging the training saber across her body and knocking the hilt from J’lima’s hand.

_ Contact, _ Lia says, gleefully.

_ Since when are they teaching you Form V? _ J’lima complains, crossing the room to grab her training saber.  _ That’s not fair, they won’t let me learn Ataru yet. _

Lia gives her a superior grin.  _ Well, J, _ she says cheerfully,  _ I guess I just have a little more control than you.) _

Every whisper of  _ you know this _ snaps into abrupt, painful clarity, and Lia staggers back without following through on the disarming strike, saber dropping down uselessly away from her, and she presses a hand to her face and chokes on a breath because oh gods, Izax above, this is- this is-

“Lia,” the Jedi says,  _ J’lima says, _ quiet, frozen in place, barely moving, and this is- how could Lia have forgotten her best friend?

_ “J’lima?” _ she chokes out, and her eyes roam over J’lima’s face and  _ there, _ the tiny scar she got from the time Lia pulled her into the waterfall and a rock cut her face, and it’s been years but the tattoos line up, the horn patterns, and she could’ve- she could’ve killed her  _ best friend _ and never even realized it.

“You remember me,” J’lima says, quiet, sounds nearly shaken, and  _ of course I remember you, _ Lia wants to say, but she hadn’t, had she? She’d forgotten so much of her time on Tython, because to survive Valkorion’s teachings she couldn’t remember what the Jedi were like, and in a world where every good thing she ever had was taken away and shattered to dust in front of her, everything she’d  _ had _ just- faded away. “I thought-” and she pauses, sucks in a breath, lowers her shoto and hooks it onto her belt. “You never recognized me.”

“It’s been so long,” Lia whispers, and it feels like an excuse, because it’s been years but J’lima had  _ known, _ had recognized her right away, and- “Why didn’t you  _ say something?” _

She can’t even begin to make sense of the expression that crosses J’lima’s face. “I thought you were dead until you came to Tython,” she says, and-  _ oh. _

Oh.

“The ship was attacked,” Lia says, and her voice is shaking and it shouldn’t be, father trained her out of this years ago, but- “On our way back from the Gathering, raiders hit the ship for the kyber. I woke up and everyone was dead, and the Knights of Zakuul found me.”

J’lima looks pale and pained. “Valkorion took you,” she says, soft, and Lia nods assent. “I-” a pause. “I know what it’s like to be under his control.”

“He’s  _ manipulative. _ He doesn’t care about anyone, not really,” Lia says, and she’s never- they all  _ knew _ it, of course, but they never talked about their father, about the way he twisted them and turned them on each other, the way they were nothing more than pawns in his game. “He has all these plans, and all anyone is- We’re all just pieces on the dejarik board, to him. None of us were ever good enough.” She  _ hates _ the way her voice aches, there, like she hasn’t known that for  _ years, _ like it hasn’t been even longer since she gave up on becoming his only apprentice.

J’lima is just- looking at her. “He likes twisting people,” she says, and Lia remembers hunger in Valkorion’s eyes and his Force-signature, the way he was always one heartbeat from devouring them all. “It’s more than just their usefulness to him - he enjoys breaking us.”  _ Us, _ she says, and  _ I know what it’s like to be under his control, _ and what did Valkorion  _ do _ to her? Isn’t it enough that he destroyed his own family? “I’ve spent seven years trying to get him out of my head, and he only had me for one.”

Valkorion  _ took _ J’lima, got into her head, and once he gets in - Lia knows better than most how he never leaves, not really. He’s there in the way she can’t admit this  _ thing _ with Vaylin is anything more than an alliance, in the way she can’t let go of this need to  _ prove herself, _ to be better than Arcann, to be the  _ best, _ in the way it sometimes feels like she’s been hollowed out by her anger until there’s nothing left but white and gold and the Dark.

“We spent years so desperate for his approval,” she says, too quiet, because J’lima- if Valkorion took her, she’ll understand. “We just wanted him to acknowledge us at all, to see we existed - when he first took me, he was so  _ kind, _ he said he’d be a master to me. After a few months, it was like I barely existed to him. The first time he acknowledged me, after that…” The memory is still fresh in her head even though it’s been ten years or more, and she hates, hates,  _ hates _ the way it still makes something shift like warmth in her chest when she thinks of it. “I was sixteen, Vaylin had just gone to Nathema, and Arcann and I were sparring. I won, had my lightsaber at his throat, and I looked up to the viewing balcony, and he  _ nodded _ at me.” She can see it so clearly, how even from a distance something glinted in her father’s eyes, briefly, and he held her gaze and nodded  _ approval _ before turning his back and walking away. “That’s when it started, with Arcann, but- Izax take it, J, I can’t even begin to explain how it  _ felt.” _

J’lima’s face darkens, and this - it’s not a Jedi emotion, the anger radiating into the air, Lia remembers enough to know that. “He made you crave his approval, then held it as a reward you’d never receive,” she says, bitter, and it  _ burns, _ hearing it laid out like this. Lia and Arcann spent so long hating each other, so long plotting to kill each other, to win, and for what? Even before he died, Valkorion never would’ve looked at them for it. “I hope he suffers more than he did when I killed him the first time,” and the words are practically spat out.

Lia wants him to suffer too, for everything he’s done to them all. To her, to Vaylin, to Thexan - even to Arcann, as much as she hates him. (Does she hate him? Or is that just another ghost of her father’s legacy?) “When Senya left - how could we possibly go with her?” she says, too quiet, too shaken. “We could never leave him, we needed him too much, and she  _ abandoned us.” _

And it hurts. It shouldn’t  _ hurt, _ Lia had thought she’d moved past that years ago, but standing here staring her childhood best friend in the face, a relationship she lost because of  _ Valkorion,  _ everything he’s ever taken from her stands out in sharp relief in her mind. He did this to Arcann too, and why, why would she waste her time on her  _ brother _ when it’s their father who did this to them, who deserves to die for all his sins? If they’d worked together instead of letting him turn them on each other, how much sooner could this have all ended?

“You didn’t know any better, it’s what he wanted,” J’lima says, and something shifts in her face and the Force and she takes a step closer, face gone soft and a little desperate. “Lia- it doesn’t have to be like this,” and she’s nearly pleading, and it  _ twists _ something in Lia’s chest. “We don’t have to fight. All of us want Vitiate dead.”

Lia thinks of hot summer days sitting on the shores of the Tythos River, of laughter filling the training salles to the brim, of sneaking out of the Temple at midnight to watch meteor showers and making wishes on every one.

She doesn’t want to fight J’lima.

And she doesn’t want to fight Thexan, and she almost doesn’t even want to fight  _ Arcann _ anymore. She just wants- she wants to kill Valkorion and know what it feels like to breathe without the weight of him around her neck and she wants to be able to admit to Vaylin what she feels and she wants to run away and live in the Endless Swamp for a month like the four of them did, before Nathema, living in abandoned houses built by exiles and using the Force to hunt animals and cook them badly over campfires and climbing trees and pretending to be Izax the Devourer. She wants to swim in the Tythos River looking for polished rocks and pretending they’re kyber crystals.

She just wants- she wants what Vaylin has always wanted. To be  _ free. _ Free from their father and his claws in her head.

“I-” she starts, and then the Force  _ shudders _ like a plucked string and  _ tears open. _

Something is  _ spilling _ into the Force, a roaring wave of emotions and sensations and a wash of power so strong, and it feels like- like a storm gone wrong, a star gone supernova, and there is only ever one person who has felt like a  _ storm _ in the Force.

_ “Vaylin,” _ Lia breathes, as the Force rings with anger-pain-fear-hatred-desperation, and then she’s running.

~

It’s been a long duel. Vaylin is  _ good, _ is strong, is powerful - stronger than all her siblings, maybe stronger than  _ father _ \- and now, unchained, the Outlander’s power is no match for her own. The Outlander, however, is a  _ skilled _ duelist with her saberstaff, the red blades sweeping and spinning through the air, lightning crackling down them, and with father’s power augmenting her own, the Outlander is- the strongest opponent Vaylin’s ever faced.

But she is unchained, now. She is  _ free. _ And she is  _ not _ going to let father’s new favorite, father’s little meat puppet,  _ win. _

Besides, Lia is counting on her. Vaylin wouldn’t want to disappoint her fellow empress.

She twirls her gold saber and launches into another attack, and the Outlander catches her blade, sends a blast of lightning and Vaylin has to twist to one side to avoid it, and then flashes her saber down to block the Outlander’s other blade. Their duel is as quick as the lightning they wield, back and forth faster than anyone watching could hope to follow, sabers blurring in the bright white floodlights of the Alliance base’s main landing platform. The rest of Vaylin’s  _ family _ is there too, mother and Arcann and Thexan, and Vaylin will take her  _ time _ with mother, will make Senya Tirall scream and bleed and feel every ounce of suffering Vaylin felt in Nathema.

But first, Vaylin has to incapacitate the Outlander, so Lia can kill father properly.

The longer the fight wears on, though, the more frustrated Vaylin gets. Father’s  _ puppet _ is too good at meeting her attacks, at matching her power, and why isn’t Vaylin’s power  _ strong enough? _ She’s free, free from the chains father put on her out of fear of what she could do, could be, why is the Outlander still matching her blow for blow. It shouldn’t be possible. It  _ can’t _ be possible.

The Outlander’s saberstaff sears along the edge of Vaylin’s arm, and she lets out a  _ scream _ of frustrated rage and pain, grabs onto all that emotion and shoves it into the Force, demands more power, more strength, the birthright her father  _ denied her _ because of his fear and his arrogance, and lightning sparks and crackles along her skin, hisses across her cloak and through her saber blade. She is Vaylin Tirall, the Eternal Empress, ruler of the galaxy, and she will  _ not lose _ to a Sith no better than a puppet. And lightning begins to  _ pour _ from her, the Force rippling and racing as she draws it all into her, bends it to her will, until every strike of her saber blade is as inexorable as the stars, as inescapable as gravity. The power of the universe is in her bones and in her blood and in her every breath and the Outlander  _ will _ learn the mistake she made, challenging Vaylin.

“You’re  _ weak, _ father,” she spits, brings her saber down towards the Outlander’s head, and she barely gets her saberstaff up to block it. “Look at you, can’t even call a proper storm anymore.”

“I am  _ not Vitiate,” _ the Outlander snaps, fury in her gold eyes, and she summons a stream of lightning, forking out from her hands. Vaylin smiles and grabs onto the Force and the lightning twists and wraps itself into the storm around her. The Force is a tsunami held at its peak around her, shielding her from attack, and  _ there, _ a weakness, and Vaylin’s yellow saber cuts down and slices a furrow in the Outlander’s shoulder. The spike of pain that ripples out into the Force feels like victory. It feels like revenge.

(Vaylin really doesn’t understand why the Outlander has such a fixation on one of father’s past bodies. Lia has it too, though so long after they’d found out father was Emperor of the Sith she’s mostly moved past it - although Vaylin is convinced it’s part of why Lia wants to kill him so badly. What does it matter, how many empires he ruled? It matters more what he’s done to  _ them, _ his family.)

“You certainly act like him,” Vaylin says, pushes herself faster,  _ harder, _ grabs even more of the Force and blasts the Outlander back a meter in a whirl of electricity. “Just without his  _ control.” _

The Outlander  _ snarls, _ eyes flickering red like molten flame, and the Force  _ surges _ with a wild rage and a  _ power _ that nearly takes Vaylin’s breath away, and she  _ lunges _ forward. Her saberstaff whirls and spins through the air and Vaylin staggers, isn’t expecting the  _ strength _ behind it - there’s a ferocity that hasn’t been there the entire rest of the duel and Vaylin staggers under the onslaught, and not even the Force curling and sparking around her can keep the Outlander back. She just takes the lightning and Vaylin can  _ feel _ her drawing on the pain, and then-

The Outlander slams her saberstaff into Vaylin’s hand, knocks the yellow saber away, skittering off the edge of the platform. And before Vaylin can do anything, can do more than reach desperately for the Force, the staff is crashing down on her shoulder and back and the Outlander has hooked a foot around her leg, and Vaylin loses her balance, can’t catch herself. The Force roils around her as her knees and palms hit the durasteel platform, and she’s  _ helpless _ before the puppet dancing on her father’s strings and she’s on her  _ knees, _ she’s never kneeled to anyone but father, hasn’t kneeled since the first time they thought him dead, and like Lia she’d sworn never to kneel to anyone ever again. 

And Vaylin lifts her head, and she can see the ghost of Valkorion in every line in the Outlander’s body, the pride, the arrogance, the vicious anger and cold control and haughty  _ command _ in those gold-red eyes, and it’s like she’s twelve again and cowering on the floor before Jarak, helpless and powerless in the face of so much  _ pain. _

No.  _ No, _ she will never be helpless again, she is  _ free- _

“I don’t need Vitiate’s power to beat you,” the Outlander says contemptuously. “For all your vaunted power, you’re nothing more than a child throwing a temper tantrum.”

Vaylin  _ screams. _

And the Force answers her call.

_ “I am not a child,” _ she snaps, and she flings her hands out to the sides and shoves upright, and the Outlander is flung back across the platform on a wave of violet energy. Mother is there, and both Vaylin’s brothers, and that gold-haired Sith, and it’s Senya who catches the Outlander, Senya who steadies her, Senya who  _ abandoned them, _ Senya who  _ left _ and now helps  _ father _ against her own daughter-

Vaylin pours every ounce of twisted, shattered hatred and  _ hurt _ into the Force, reaches into it with the memory of every cruel torment Jarak wrote onto her skin, of Senya standing at the doors as the Sanitarium swallowed her whole, of Valkorion and his icy eyes and his derision and his chains and  _ kneel before the dragon of Zakuul, _ of Thexan vanishing in the night, of Arcann kneeling  _ to the Outlander _ \- she reaches into the Force with all of her being and the Force  _ reaches back. _

And she is consumed.

This - this is the power of the universe at her command, this is the power of suns, this is Vaylin burning at the heart of a star and every ounce of that fire is at her control. Lightning fractures the air around her and the platform rocks under waves of  _ power _ bigger than anyone can comprehend, and for a single glorious moment Vaylin rides the twisting break of that tsunami, leashes the power of a star gone supernova to her will, and she throws back her head and smiles with a savage thrill because  _ this  _ \- this is everything father was afraid of, this is everything he knew she could be, everything she threatened him with. This is the Force incarnate, wrath and fury and vengeance, and every nerve is alight with the burn of it.

“Vaylin,  _ don’t!” _ she hears, as though from a distance, echoing down a tunnel, a well, and Vaylin is underwater, everything muted but the whorl of lightning around her and the power to shape the universe at her fingertips, and  _ this _ must be how father felt, like a god, and no wonder he always saw them all as beneath him. Mother, Arcann, Thexan, the Outlander - they’re all just motes of dust against the power of galaxies, against the burn of the Force in her veins.

(But Vitiate, Valkorion, Tenebrae has been beyond death for an age, and Vaylin, for all her strength, is mortal, and humans were never meant to hold the power of gods.)

Something  _ shifts _ and the fire racing through her turns from strength to  _ agony. _

The Force and the lightning and the storm around her are overwhelming and in an instant the wave spirals out of her reach and she is  _ drowning, _ buffeted on all sides by so much raw power it burns, and the ozone in the air chokes the breath in her lungs. Sparks crackle across her skin and she thinks she might be screaming, it  _ hurts, _ she’s helpless before the Force, everything raging so far out of control there’s nothing she can even  _ hope _ to do to get it back. She’s helpless, caught up in an ocean of  _ emotion, _ and someone’s coming towards her, straining against the wind and the electricity, a red lightsaber just barely visible through everything and- and- 

It’s the Outlander, some part of Vaylin recognizes, the Outlander,  _ father _ coming to kill her, pressing through the wild lightning and the roaring storm and then there’s a  _ surge _ in the Force and a flash of white and gold lands, the Outlander flying back again, and it’s  _ Lia. _ Lia, with a look of such  _ terror _ on her face that it stabs into Vaylin’s chest, but there’s nothing she can do. She can’t even  _ breathe _ past the pain and the rush in her ears.

Lia is turning to her, walking forward even through the storm, even though lightning is cracking across her, even though it must _ hurt _ her like it hurts Vaylin, and she reaches out both hands, pleading and desperate and Vaylin can’t even move but  _ gods, please. _ “Vaylin, hey, look at me,” Lia begs,  _ begs, _ and Vaylin-

It’s all she can do to twist, to  _ look, _ to reach her hands out desperately, and Lia grabs onto them tightly and steps closer to her, and suddenly she’s no longer alone in the storm. The storm, burning and screaming over her skin, and it hurts, it  _ hurts, _ the Force tearing through her body and her mind and it feels like Jarak laughing as she rocked and sobbed in a circle of chanting, and she just wants it to  _ stop. _ “Please,” Vaylin chokes, and she doesn’t even know if she’s talking, if Lia can even hear her, “please, it  _ hurts.” _

“I know,” Lia says, and Vaylin clings tighter to her hands. The Force is pouring across her like water through a burst dam and she can’t, she can’t, she can’t. “I know, Vaylin. I’m here, I’ve got you, just- let go, just  _ breathe _ and let the Force go.”

She can’t. It’s too  _ much, _ she has nothing to cling to but Lia’s hands and Lia’s voice and her head  _ burns _ like it’s going to shatter and she just wants it to stop. She just wants it to  _ stop. _ “Make it stop,” she pleads, and it feels like she’s going to shake apart on fault lines engraved in her skin and please,  _ please, _ she just wants it to  _ stop! _

“You have to let it  _ go, _ Vaylin,” Lia says, sounds almost frantic.

“I don’t know how,” and she’s gasping for breath but Lia’s holding her hands tight and something releases, just a little, tension shifting, and she sinks to her knees on the durasteel and shudders. Violet lightning arcs between her fingers and up Lia’s arms in their white and gold, but her- partner doesn’t flinch at the pain she must be feeling, just slides her hands up to Vaylin’s shoulders and squeezes tight.

“Okay,” she says, sounds scared but steady, and Vaylin clings to that steadiness and stares at Lia’s face. “Then just-” and she takes one hand and takes Vaylin’s wrist, presses her hand flat against Lia’s chest. “Just try and match my breathing, okay?”

Vaylin doesn’t know if she  _ can, _ but she can feel Lia’s heart racing beneath her palm, her chest rising and falling in rhythm, and it- it helps, it gives her something to focus on beyond the way the Force has hollowed her out and taken over her bones. It takes everything she has in her to focus just on that rhythm, to try and match her own shallow, shaky, too-fast breathing to it, but she clings to every last shred of strength she has, what little the Force has left her with, and it feels like it takes an eternity but the raw, broken-glass  _ agony _ in her head starts to dull, the static on her skin starts to fade, and the copper in her mouth and the ozone in the air are no longer so heavy and constant.

The instant the lightning begins to die, Lia surges forward and pulls Vaylin entirely into her arms. And Vaylin presses her face into Lia’s shoulder and does what she hasn’t since she was barely-twelve: she  _ cries. _

“It’s okay,” Lia whispers, brings one hand up to comb through Vaylin’s hair, and it helps, it’s soothing, grounding, and with a last sharp pulse the Force drains away and she can  _ breathe _ again. It feels like everything’s been stripped away, leaving her empty, and she  _ aches; _ she’s been wrung out and the Force is nothing more than a whisper against her thoughts but that’s better, almost. The tears must be soaking through Lia’s tunic but she doesn’t complain, just presses her forehead to Vaylin’s hair.

“It’s over,” Vaylin whispers, hoarse.

Lia’s arms tighten around her, and it nearly hurts but it’s good, it’s steadying. “You’re safe, Vaylin,” she promises, and Vaylin twines her arms so tightly around Lia’s ribs she’s half-certain she’ll leave bruises.

Even with only the barest presence of the Force against her, Vaylin can still sense people all around them - mother, Arcann and Thexan, and the Outlander chief among them, but others are starting to gather, and their army is- likely gone, or much reduced. So- yes, it’s over, the storm is gone and Vaylin is in control of herself again.

But safe?

Neither of them are  _ safe. _

~

It’s a long handful of minutes before Lia can bring herself to lift her head from Vaylin’s hair and look around the Alliance base’s platform. Vaylin is still crying quietly into her shoulder, and Lia soothes a hand up and down her spine absently, flicks her eyes over the small crowd gathered at the end of the platform. Senya is there, Arcann and Thexan on either side of her, and all three of them look- look  _ worried, _ even Arcann, who has a hand on Senya’s shoulder like he was holding her back. His eyes are blue like Thexan’s and the aura of hate that always clung to him so palpably is gone, and when he meets her gaze he looks  _ pained _ more than anything else. It doesn’t- it doesn’t make sense.

The Outlander is next to Thexan, studying Lia with cool gold eyes, but she doesn’t look like she’s about to order an  _ attack, _ at least, looks more like she’s content to stand back and observe for now. At her shoulder is Lana Beniko, the Sith who freed the Outlander to begin with, and behind her is a small clump of Alliance soldiers, who are staring at Lia and Vaylin.

And at the edge of the platform, where Lia approached from, is J’lima, both her sabers on her belt again. Lia holds her eyes not-quite-pleadingly - she doesn’t want them to attack her, Vaylin needs  _ help _ and wouldn’t be able to fight, and Lia- now more than ever, she just wants Valkorion dead, wants him to  _ pay _ for what he’s done.

“They’d make good allies, Jana,” J’lima says, and- Jana? The Outlander? It must be, because the Outlander - Jana, apparently - nods, considering. Lia watches her, for a moment, and then there’s movement and she tightens her hold on Vaylin instinctively.

It’s just Senya, walking towards them, though she stops a few feet away. “Don’t,” Lia says, low, and Senya goes still, although something almost  _ pained _ twists across her face.

“Lia-” she starts, and Lia stills her hand on Vaylin’s back, pins Senya in place with a stare.

“You  _ abandoned us,” _ she snaps. “To  _ him. _ You let him do this to us.”

“What do you think he would’ve done to me if I’d stayed?” Senya asks, soft and aching. “He blamed me for what he saw to be Thexan’s weakness - he wasn’t going to risk me… contaminating the rest of you.”

“You were the only one who gave a  _ damn _ about us,” Lia says, and her voice catches in her throat, and she  _ hates _ the sign of weakness, frees one hand to swipe at her face and looks down at Vaylin. “And you  _ left us.” _

“I know,” Senya whispers. “I should’ve- Lia, I’m so, so  _ sorry.” _

The Force is filled with a painful sincerity, with  _ sorrow _ and regret, and Lia closes her eyes for a long minute, swallows hard against the choking knot in her throat. Senya had been so  _ kind, _ when they were children, when Lia wanted nothing more than to go back to Tython and find J’lima - she’d been a firm teacher, yes, but outside of the practice rings, outside of the arena, Senya had always been a comfort.

And then she  _ left. _

A part of Lia has always just wanted her to come back.

“I’m not the one you have to apologize to,” she manages to get out, slips her fingers through Vaylin’s dirty blonde hair again and tries to remember how to breathe.

“Vaylin,” Senya says, so quiet, and Vaylin lifts her head from Lia’s shoulder, turns to look at her. There’re still tears on her cheeks and her eyes are rimmed in red and she looks pale and  _ exhausted _ and Lia  _ hurts. _ “Vaylin, please.”

For a long minute, Vaylin doesn’t move, and then she tightens her hands in Lia’s tunic and nods, once, jerky and sharp, before dropping her face back against Lia’s shoulder. And Senya-  _ slumps, _ the Force heavy with so much  _ relief _ Lia almost can’t breathe around it.

So- this is it, then. They’ve made their decision, to stand with, with the Outlander, with the family who left them, with people who’ve been trying to kill them for over a year. But-

No one is attacking, now. Even though Vaylin’s barely in any shape to  _ stand, _ much less fight, even though Lia’s had her back turned on them and would never have been able to react in time. And Senya looks like she’s in  _ tears, _ nearly, Arcann and Thexan having come up on both sides of her to support her, and the way they’re looking at Lia and Vaylin is- they look  _ happy. _ Concerned, but happy.

“There’s a shuttle on the way, if you’re coming,” the Outlander - Jana - says, and Lia looks past Thexan to the Sith and her cool gold eyes.

“You’re going to Zakuul,” she says, too quiet. Jana is going to take the Throne; Vaylin’s Throne,  _ Lia’s _ Throne. The Throne she spent years bleeding and burning and struggling to claim.

But did she ever really want it? Or did Valkorion just convince her she did?

Jana nods. “Yes, I am,” she says, “and Vitiate is going to die there.”

Lia doesn’t know, anymore, what she  _ wants, _ what’s her, what’s Valkorion, what’s a mixture of the two - but the one thing she knows for certain is this: she wants Valkorion  _ dead. _ She wants him to suffer, for everything he did, to her and to Vaylin and to Arcann and Thexan. She wants to kill him herself, but-

Lia looks down at Vaylin, lifts one hand to gently brush a piece of hair back from her face. “What do you want to do?” she murmurs, and Vaylin pulls back just enough to look at her, face blotchy from crying, eyes so tired. Lia brushes her thumb over one cheek, wipes away some of the residual tears, and for a minute Vaylin just closes her eyes and leans into the touch.

“I can’t face the Throne,” she whispers, her voice barely more than a rasp in her throat, and Lia nods. It’s- understandable, she’s not quite sure if she can look at the Throne right now and  _ not _ try to take it back.

And Lia won’t leave her here alone, not after that storm, not when the Alliance was enemy territory just an hour ago and she’s expecting binders and cells the moment Valkorion is dead and the Throne secured, but before she can say anything, Thexan makes a little noise, catches her eyes. “I’ll stay with her,” he says, “if she’s alright with it. I don’t need revenge.”

“Thexan always was my favorite,” Vaylin says, quiet, a little shaky, but she opens her eyes and nods, slowly, carefully pulls her arms back from around Lia. “Make him  _ scream, _ Lia,” she says.

Oh, she will. “I promise,” Lia says, and she doesn’t care about all the people around as she leans forward to give Vaylin a soft kiss. “I’ll be back soon.”

The tiny, tired smile Vaylin gives her is worth every burn and singe across her body from the lightning.

Thexan helps Vaylin up, leads her back into the Alliance base, and Lia takes a moment to straighten her tunic, her gloves, pushes to her feet and strides firmly across the platform as an Alliance shuttle comes in to hover at its edge. J’lima falls in at her shoulder, and it’s been almost twenty years but  _ gods _ does it feel like a comfort.

Vaylin is alive. And Valkorion is going to die today.

The Immortal Emperor of Zakuul is  _ nothing _ against the fierce, protective flame in her chest.


End file.
